The Chips of the Magi
by RonHeartbreaker
Summary: Kim's at the Sorbonne and Ron, in London, isn't speaking to her. Why not? And what holiday gift can Kim give him to try to patch things up? Another entry for Zaratan's December Challenge. Diplomacy in Action Universe.
1. December in Paris

The Chips of the Magi

"Kim - I know I've asked you this, like, a dozen times already – but are you sure this is a good idea? Do you really want to go through with it?"

Kim glared down at the holographic projection of Wade's head that hovered over the third-generation Kimmunicator (now seemingly nothing more than a simple rubber wristband with the slogan "Anything's Possible" stamped on it), and snapped back a reply.

"And, as I've said, _like_, a dozen times already – yes and yes! So lay off!"

Suddenly her face fell and the discernible traits of anger – the furrowed brow, the clenched jaw, the subsonic rumbling building in her throat – faded away.

What was left was something else entirely: a thin, drawn, and _uncertain_ Kim Possible, sitting on the edge of her bed in her darkening Paris apartment.

She brushed a lock of hair out of her face and looked, guiltily, at Wade's image.

"I'm so sorry, Wade," she began, haltingly. "I just… I just don't know. I don't know what else to do. I feel like I've tried everything and, even if this is sort of crazy, I have to do it. I'm all out of options."

Wade looked back at her, worry quite evident on his face.

"I'm sorry, too, Kim, that I keep questioning you. But even though the procedure's not that complicated, it's just so… melodramatic, you know, to do this unilaterally, without talking it over with him."

Without warning Kim burst into sobs.

"I…I… Wade – you _know _I haven't been _able_ to tell him… you know he won't talk to me!"

Wade just looked on, expressionless, trying to disguise his discomfort at her response.

She went on, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands as she spoke softly.

"I've tried, Wade. First I tried to laugh it off - I sent him Bueno Nacho gift baskets by way of apology, for a month." She broke down again, weeping into her palms for a couple of moments before raising her face again to look at Wade. "_That_ was a big mistake. So I tried to make up for it. I've apologized every way I know. I've sent flowers, emails, telegrams, _handwritten letters_, for heaven's sake. He hasn't responded to anything. So I went to his apartment in London a month ago. His landlord told me he had taken the semester off and gone back to the U.S.! And I still heard nothing from him."

"Until I got that email from him. Just last week." She looked rather intently at Wade. "I know you've read it."

Wade looked away again, then back. "How did you know?"

Kim smiled wanly, and her reddened eyes twinkled for just an instant. "I didn't. Just playin' ya."

Wade looked even more sheepish, if possible.

Kim lay back on the narrow bed and crossed her arms behind her head; the holo-Wade moved with her, now hovering over her face.

"Don't worry, Wade. It's ok. I figured you'd read it – how could you not? Ron emails me for the first time in three months… you'd have to be dead not to want to see it."

"Yeah." Wade paused, then rubbed the back of his neck. "Kinda cryptic, huh? 'Meet me at Middleton BN on Christmas Eve. We need to talk.' Not very Ronnish, if you ask me."

"I know. 'We need to talk'? That's what I've been trying to do for three months now." Kim's exasperation melted quickly into melancholy. "I don't know what Ron's going to say to me on Christmas Eve. That's why I'm doing this - I've _got_ to be ready with something to prove that I'm sorry and that I trust him and he should trust me."

She sighed.

"This might sound silly, Wade, but...I need to _atone_, and I haven't figured out any other way to do it."

Wade sighed, his expression coming full circle back to the resignation with which he had begun the conversation. "I just can't believe, Kim, that Ron would hold a grudge this long. I mean, this is Ron we're talking about. And _you. _I mean, the guy's been in love with you forever. If you were any more together you'd be, y'know, _married._"

The moment the word was out of his mouth Wade knew he'd erred. Big time.

Kim's lower lip began to tremble and she burst into wracking sobs, finally rolling over onto her stomach and crying into her pillow for a few moments. Holo-Wade returned to the holding position over her wrist, while the real Wade waited patiently for Kim to look up again. When she rolled onto her side, clutching the pillow to her chest, his image immediately snapped to a comfortable focal length in front of her eyes, rotated 90 degrees so as to be properly oriented to her head.

"Oh, Wade. Please don't talk about marriage. I can't bear it." _I thought this would be the year. I thought this would be the Christmas he'd ask me._

Wade was more than happy to return to the more clinical discussion they'd been having earlier.

"Listen, Kim, whatever you want to do – whatever you think would help - you know that I'm with you 100 percent. Y'know, I've got your back." He smiled, sheepish again, but also feeling a bit proud of himself. "Just beep me when you're back in Middleton and you can come right over. It shouldn't take any time at all. Then I guess you'll be ready to face the Ron-man."

Kim smiled sadly back at Wade. "You continue to rock, Professor Von Loadenstein. Sorry I'm such a basket case. I don't know if things'll be better after Christmas Eve, but I think they could hardly be worse. Anyway, at least I'll get to see you. Give my love to your parents. You gonna stop by on Christmas?"

"Wouldn't miss the brain meatloaf for all the world, Kim. See ya in a few days."

"See ya, Wade."

The holo-Wade blipped out and Kim was left alone, lying on her side on her bed, watching the shadows fall over Paris. _The City of Lights. So why do I feel so dark?_

Eventually, after a few more bouts of tears, she fell asleep.

_TBC_


	2. Uncomfortable Interlude

Thanks to CajunBear73, Solarstone, Drakonis Aurous, and MrDrP for reviewing the first chapter. (And kudos to MrDrP for guessing the nature of the titular chips!) Sincere apologies for the delay in posting - my plans for a Christmas Eve-Christmas Day one-two punch, well, fell by the wayside. Thanks for your patience. And thanks in advance for reviewing.

Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable (C) Disney.

* * *

Kim squirmed uncomfortably in the airplane seat. _At least I got an exit row_, she thought, and stretched out as best she could.

During her first couple of years in Paris, flight staff would often recognize her and generously bump her up to business class. (Or occasionally even first. _Oh… sweet, sweet, first class)_. She had felt a little bad playing on her celebrity, but commercial air travel was such a horror that she always found a way to justify it to herself. Lately, though, with her and Ron having really dialed back on the missions, and the media attention having died down, the moments of recognition became fewer and fewer. And of course, this being the holidays, the plane was packed, so nobody was going to offer her an upgrade.

_Better make the best of it,_ she thought, paging through the in-flight magazine. The crossword puzzle was already done, of course, darn it. She read an article about up-and-coming tourist destinations (Albany? _Doubt it!_), then flipped to the ads. Handwriting-recognizing pens. Language-learning software. Combination digital-recorders-ear-hair-trimmers. Each caused the same two thoughts to pop, into he head: _Who buys this stuff? _And then: _Ron would love this._

Which caused her, of course, to review the events of the last few months, as if looking through a kaleidoscope of angst, anger, resentment, and worry:

The moment over Labor Day weekend when she had inadvertently revealed to Ron that he had been carrying around a tracking chip all these years.

His shocked reaction and refusal to talk about it with her.

Those horribly tense last couple of days together, before they went back to their respective European destinations.

Then the way in which Ron had shut her out for the entire fall, despite her attempts to apologize and reach out to him.

She couldn't believe it had really played out that way. Like some kind of a bad soap opera. She still wasn't sure it was entirely her fault, or that she should take all the blame.

_It's not like Ron couldn't have figured out that he was chipped. Wade practically __**told**__ him that time in Florida. And how does a guy have mystical monkey powers and not notice that his chi or whatever is off because of the small bit of silicon in the back of his neck? I mean, who is Ron to get all up on his high horse just because…_

Just because Wade and she had fitted him out, unwittingly, with a homing device that allowed them to track his every move.

Ok, that _did_ sound pretty bad, when she put it that way.

She stretched again and again, because it was the only way to release the pent-up energy in her body while crammed into her seat.

_But why should I put it that way? Ok, Wade and I did a bad thing. But is this the way to deal with it? To cut me off, not talk to me at all for months? We've been dating for years, now – and Ron just decides he's not going to communicate at all?_

And all those years of dating – she had never told him about the chip. What was wrong with her?

_But how could he not have known?! Aargh! I just figured he knew and didn't care!_

She wrapped herself around this axle repeatedly for quite a while, while dinner came and went and the other passengers immersed themselves in the movie or drifted off to sleep.

_Well, there's nothing for it. Wade's probably right – I'm being silly to do this. But I can't just walk into Bueno Nacho with nothing to offer except words._

Satisfied, somewhat, by having reaffirmed her decision, she turned off her light, put in her earplugs, and drifted into a fitful, dreamless, airplane sleep.

TBC


	3. I'll Be Homed For Christmas

Thanks again to BlueEyedBrigadier, CajunBear73, FatherFigure1, MrDrP, Solarstone, and Yankee Bard for the reviews. I hope this concluding installment justifies the time you invested in this little tale.

Credit is due to Slyrr, to whom I apologize for basically ripping off the final chapter of the Return of Zorpox. I hope he will accept, as compensation, a big fat plug for his story. Go read the Grimm Probable series! Now! You won't regret it.

Disney KP etc.

* * *

Kim stood outside the Bueno Nacho for a moment, contemplating the old/new hangout. (Old 'cuz they always hung out there; new 'cuz it had been rebuilt more times than they could count.) 

_Time to rip off the band-aid. Literally._

She took a deep breath, pulled open the door, and walked through.

A cold gust of wind followed her into the restaurant, and she shivered. She slipped off her gloves and rubbed her hands together while glancing around for Ron. He hadn't specified a meeting time, just the day, but late morning was the likeliest time – before everybody's Christmas Eve activities began.

Sure enough, there he was, at their old table, a chimirito combo platter in front of him. _A good sign, I guess. I mean, if he really were still angry he'd have picked another table, right?_

"Kim!"

He sounded so… so normal. She was thrilled to hear that normal voice. Just like old times?

"Hi Ron," she said, walking up to the table. She slipped off her ski jacket and laid it on the bench before sliding into the booth. As she did so, her hand involuntarily rose up and gently rubbed the small bandage on the back of her neck.

She could see Ron noticing the movement, and she blushed.

"Everything ok, Kim?"

_Wow, he looks good._ Those three months were the longest they'd been apart in a _long_ time, and it was kind of like stop-motion photography to see him again. He'd been getting taller, a little bit each year, and he'd been filling out, too. These last three months back in the States – whatever he might have been doing – apparently agreed with him. He even had a new, spikier haircut. Very cool.

Her mind flipped back to what he'd asked and she just couldn't keep herself from unburdening in a torrent of words.

"Everything _ok?_ _OK?_ Ron, I know you were angry – I know – but you've frozen me out for months now. You don't want to accept my apology – ok. You want to end our relationship? That'd break my heart – and I'd argue that we should work through it – but it'd be your right. But how can you just ignore me?"

Ron looked at her, his expression uncharacteristically intense and serious.

"Kim - couldn't you, for like a minute, hold onto the fact that this _isn't_ about you?"

That stopped Kim dead. She could feel the redness of humiliation rising in her cheeks. All she could do was to stare down at the tabletop.

"So now, I'm going to talk about me for a minute. I hope you'll listen, because I have some important things to say." Ron paused, then added, with a touch of embarrassment, "Wow, now _that_ sounded self-important."

His face went all serious again.

"I'm not even angry any more, you know. I _was, _of course. Though I'm sure you figured that out. It took me a couple of days to process... that's why I didn't really let you have it, when we were still here at the end of the summer. But as I was on my way back to London, I just got angrier and angrier."

Ron scowled for a moment, his eyes now firmly fixed on the tabletop as well.

Then his face relaxed and he resumed speaking.

"It's like I went through all the stages of grief, you know. Oh, and by the way, thanks for the BN gift baskets."

Kim looked up, surprised.

Ron continued. "Oh yeah, of course I wasn't going to let those go to waste - you know, sending them back would have been a pretty empty gesture. Plus I was in the depression phase, so they really hit the spot."

Kim just watched Ron, more confused than ever.

"Anyway, to make a long story short, I just couldn't talk to you, Kim. I couldn't see you. I couldn't focus on anything, really, other than how bad I felt. Not just 'cuz I was chipped, you know."

He leaned back against the seat. "I mean, in high school, if Wade had suggested it – if you'd asked me - I'd probably have happily signed on, for my own self-preservation. But that we could date for three years - that we could be in college already - and you hadn't told me? How little could you think of me?"

Kim once again felt the hot flush of embarrassment and guilt. She opened her mouth to protest but Ron just held up a hand.

"Lemme finish up, Kim. I don't have that much more to say." He sighed, then went on.

"So I came home. My heart really wasn't in it at school, and London was just depressing, and I knew you'd come looking and I wasn't sure I could face you. What would I say? So I grabbed a cheap ticket home and came back to be with Mom, Dad, and Hana."

"Mostly I just hung out. Played a lot of Zombie Mayhem. Played a lot of Hana mayhem. Watched a lot of cable. You know, vegging."

He smiled a tiny smile. "A dip with a chip."

"And I knew I didn't have to worry that you'd worry about me - after all, you could always just have Wade track my location, right?" He looked at her piercingly.

Kim shook her head. "No, Ron. This semester I never asked Wade ever to use the chip to find you." She bowed her head again. "And I never will, if that's what you want."

Ron looked at her, an expression of mild surprise on his face. He picked up his soda, tweaked the bendy straw, took a noisy slurp, then resumed speaking.

"Mom and Dad were concerned, I guess, but you know how they are - kinda low-key style of parentage. They let me chill before starting in with the advice."

Kim ventured a question. "Are they angry with me?"

"They were, a little, yeah...but," and Ron smiled again, "they almost came down on your side in the end. I think they weren't that unhappy to find that you and Wade had been keeping tabs on me all those years."

He rubbed the back of his neck through the high collar of his flannel shirt, and winced slightly.

"Finally I just sat down and let it all out with them. How angry I was that you didn't trust me. But that maybe you and Wade _were right_ to have chipped me, given what a goofball I was, given the kind of danger we always put ourselves in."

Kim had exactly no clue how to respond to what Ron had just said. So she continued to sit and listen.

"But that didn't change how bad I felt at how you kept it from me all these years. Do you think I would have flipped out? How angry would I have gotten? What's the worst that would have happened? Ron Stoppable, erupting volcano of rage and self-righteousness? I don't think so, KP."

Ron paused a moment, and looked at his congealing chimirito.

"But you know what happened?" Ron gazed at her. "One day, after I said to them, for the twentieth time, 'How could she not have told me?', you know what they said?"

Kim shook her head, wondering where all this was going.

"They said, 'Ron, this _was _her way of telling you.'"

He slurped at his soda once more.

"Funny, huh? _This was her way of telling you._ Of course, they were right, you know."

He looked at her.

"I remember how it was, back in high school, when I was in love with you..."

_When I _**_was_**_? He's not any more? _Kim felt like she wanted to throw up.

"... but I couldn't tell you. I was so worried. It was like some huge wall that I couldn't get through. What would it do to our friendship? What if you didn't feel the same way? What if you did? I couldn't know how you would react, and so it got bigger and bigger until it took being tied to a giant cactus with Drakken on the verge of world domination for me to actually spill."

Kim's head was spinning. Who _was_ this guy sitting across from her? Ron had never spoken about anything so deliberately for so long. Certainly not their relationship. Or his feelings. Which were...? She believed him about not being angry any more - he definitely didn't seem angry. Mostly... just chatty. And serious. Sooo serious.

_Oh._

_Is Ron growing up?_

And immediately she kicked herself for being so condescending, even just in her own head.

"Anyhoo...like I was saying... they were right. I think you wanted to tell me, Kim. I think you were afraid to because you didn't know what it would do to _us, _and the longer you waited, the harder it was to say anything. So finally, without thinking, you just blurted it out. 'Cuz it was the only thing you could do."

He sighed.

"And it's not like we've always been so totally honest, or so totally great, with each other." His face took on a distant look. "Me with the election for class president, and the Naco money. And the panic room." He shuddered. "You ditching me on Halloween, or abandoning me to my fate at the hands...feet... of a giant roach."

Kim worked up the courage to speak.

"Yeah, for good friends, we, uh... we weren't really there for each other, sometimes, maybe."

"Yeah." Ron smiled at her. "So, I made my peace with it."

_What?_

"Uh...what?" Kim had thought she was confused before, but Ron's last comment had just taken her to some higher plane of bafflement.

Ron was really down to the last of his soda and was assertively working the straw to get the final drops out.

"I'm not happy about it, but I realize it was for the best." Slurp. "You telling me, I mean." Remove top of soda, squint into cup, replace top. Slurp. "Look, that was high school, right? It's just an accident that it's still an issue now."

Ron's face grew serious again. "I'm not going to pretend I'm some perfect guy. I've done some pretty awful and stupid things over the years." He shook his head gently as Kim made to reply in his defense. "But one thing that I know is, I won't have any secrets from you, Kim."

"Not now, not ever. You see, not telling you about Yamanouchi - that was hard, and, y'know, yucky. It was _such_ a relief being able to finally share that. And, well, we know where my secretly borrowing your battlesuit got us."

Ron took a final, drawn-out slurp, then set aside the cup for good.

"So maybe this is our second big fight. I guess I really kinda dragged it out." He ran his hand through his hair, rubbed the back of his neck, winced again. "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that. I mean, it was pretty bad, you not telling me about the chip - but it wasn't fair that I just refused to talk to you about it for a whole semester. I hope you'll forgive me. Like a little Christmas present."

He looked at her, intently.

"'Cuz I want you to know - that I forgive you. For what happened." He stopped, looked down at the table a moment, then back up into her eyes. "And, I trust you."

Another pause.

"And I hope you'll trust me."

Ron reached into the vest pocket of his flannel shirt and, careful not to disturb the napping Rufus within, brought out a small, black square. He set it on the table between him and Kim.

"What - what's this?"

"I thought you'd recognize it, KP. It's the chip. I had it taken out yesterday."

If Kim's head wasn't spinning before, it certainly was now. She didn't seem able to process any information at all. Buying time, she picked up the chip and turned it around, examining it. _Such a small, harmless little thing…_

"You had it taken out? By whom? Wade didn't say anything!" _I guess that's why he winced when he rubbed his neck._

"Wade didn't know, KP. I got help from someone with an intimate knowledge of human anatomy and a light touch with a laser scalpel."

_Oh my god..._

"Am I in big trouble?" _No wonder Mom's been acting weird!_ She'd thought her mom had been a little distant, a little preoccupied, but had just attributed it to the big holiday plans. _Man, I am so busted._

"Well, she wanted to read you the riot act, sure, but I convinced her that that was really my right, not hers. Besides, I reminded her that she was hardly a great poster mom for medical ethics - you know, letting her teenage daughter scrub in on brain surgeries, and all that...Eventually, she saw it my way."

Kim just sat there for a minute. Ron...whose biggest concern during high school was whether he'd have enough money to grande size, who shared confidences with cockroaches and would rap in front of a live audience at the drop of a hat... Ron had worked through this, forgiven her, and gone and removed the chip himself? With her mom's help?

"I can guess what you're thinking. Kinda melodramatic, doing this without talking it over at all." He sighed. "But I guess I felt like, after the last few months, something dramatic was needed. You know, so we could start with a clean slate."

Kim suddenly felt...very, very foolish.

"Uh, Ron...I have a kinda, melodramatic" _idiot, idiot, idiot _"thing to tell you too."

He waited patiently.

"Uhh..." She turned down the collar of her fleece and pointed to the small bandage on the back of her neck. "I, uh... I had Wade chip me. Yesterday."

Ron stared at her, uncomprehendingly.

"I thought that, you know, if you were so angry with me about the chip - and you had every right to be - maybe, I dunno, if I had myself chipped, well, it would equalize things. In some way." _Idiot idiot idiot!_

"Pretty silly, huh?" She spread her hands on the table and stared at them. "Wade _said_ I was being melodramatic." She folded her hands and put them in her lap. "Look at us – a couple of melodrama queens."

She looked up at Ron.

"But I felt so bad. And after I got your email - I didn't know what you'd say to me. But I knew I had to do something. Words wouldn't be enough." She peered at Ron, hopefully. "Kinda a big romantic gesture, you see... Well, a big romantic gesture in our weird little universe..."

"I do trust you, Ron. I learned that senior year, despite the ups and downs." She sighed. "I'd like to say that I never doubted you since then. Except... except that I guess I still underestimate you, and so kept avoiding telling you about the chip..."

She sat up straight and looked him in the eyes. "I'm sorry about the chip, and I'm sorry for not telling you about it for all this time, and I'm so happy you forgive me. Because I love you and I want to be with you, and if our relationship ended over this thing, this thing that I could have fixed easily years ago, that would be horrible."

She stopped and looked at the chip, then at Ron. "I didn't expect today to be about you forgiving me… That's… that's a great Christmas present. Just what I wanted, this year." She tucked the chip into her pocket. "I think I'll keep this. A little reminder, I guess, about trusting and communicating with the person you love."

_And next year...maybe, after we rebuild what we had, maybe you'll give me something else, something a little bigger than a chip, maybe with a little more sparkle..._

Ron spoke, tentatively. "Well, I have to admit, your gift to me is really... a surprise."

He reached across the table and took her hands.

"I love you, KP. You didn't have to, uh, be _homed_ for Christmas" and he flashed a goofy smile (to which she responded with an eye roll) "just to show me you love me. But it is quite the gesture..."

"So you're chipless. And I'm chipped." Kim disengaged one hand to run through her hair, and shook her head in astonishment at the twist. "Now what do we do?"

"Dunno, KP. But, y'know, together, we'll decide." He smiled warmly. "Maybe with a little less drama, this time around. 'K?"

"Ok."

He took her hands again and squeezed them. "Merry Christmas, KP."

"Merry Christmas, Ron."

They stood up to embrace, and their lips met in a long, passionate kiss that had waited four months for delivery. And was suddenly interrupted by simultaneous "ows" as their hands wandered up onto their matching back-of-the-neck bandages.

They pulled back, looked at each other, and smiled, then headed out together, not minding the cold at all.

_The End_


End file.
